Prior to the present invention, various door latches have been devised for selective securement of a hinged vehicle door in the frame therefor as provided by the body work of the vehicle. Examples of such latches can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,695,663, issued Oct. 3, 1973, to Stanley Cockburn for "CLOSURE LATCH", and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,756,563, issued Jul. 12, 1988, to Stephen Garwood et al for "VEHICLE DOOR LATCH" both assigned to the assignee of this invention and hereby incorporated by reference.
These latches and other latches commonly used in motor vehicles are known to effectively latch the door and comply with all applicable governmental regulations.
The present invention is of the general category of the above referenced door latches which securely holds the door in latched and locked positions and allows convenient entrance and egress as desired by vehicle passengers.
The present invention provides a new blockout that may be engineered into a wide range of door latching systems. Furthermore, this invention incorporates construction to effectively return the mechanism to an unblocking position by the normal unlocking motion of a locking-unlocking mechanism incorporated within the door to an unblocking third position allowing convenient and easy egress when desired. In this invention, the locking lever of the door latch is selectively movable by a garnish button or manual or powered slide bar to a first or locked position in which the striker is entrapped by the locking bolt so that the locking lever cannot turn the lock bolt to the unlatched position until the door locking-unlocking lever system has been moved by the slide bar from the locked position to a second or unlocked position.
Importantly in this invention, the locking lever can be readily moved to a third position by the slide bar in which a block activated blocker bar is moved to an unblocked position. The third position is obtained by the moving of the locking-unlocking lever system in the conventional unlocking direction to the unblocked position so that the door can be opened for passenger egress. The block will blockout unlatching of the door in both lock and unlock positions by resulting tilting of a blocker bar moving the locking lever to a third position in direction of unlocking will remove the blocking by the blocker bar.
Furthermore in this invention, a pair of lever mechanisms interface (1) the inside door unlatching handle linkage, and (2) the locking lever system that may be actuated by the interior manual or powered slide bar, or garnish button to move the locking lever in the locked or unlocked position. These lever mechanisms cooperate to retain the locking lever in an unblocked position and to subsequently remove this retention on the return of the inside handle to its normal stowed position.
The present invention is designed to be housed within the existing structure of the door and automatically locks the door latch independently of the locking lever and incorporates an unblocking system that can be readily operated with one hand using normal unlocking force. The system is self restoring with each activation of the inside handle and is a straight forward system that can be economically produced.
These and other features, objects and advantages of this invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description and drawing in which: